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DISABLED VETERANS AIM FOR PARALYMPIC DREAMS --
For some participants at the National Disabled
Veterans
Winter Sports Clinic, it's not enough simply to
make
it down the mountain.
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http://presszoom.com/story_128825.html
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Disabled Veterans Aim for Paralympic Dreams
WASHINGTON, – For some participants at the National Disabled Veterans
Winter Sports Clinic here, it’s not enough simply to make it down the
mountain. They’ve set their sights on conquering it — and any other
obstacle that stands between them and the U.S. Paralympic Ski Team.
Mark Mix is among about a dozen veterans at the six-day clinic, the only
one of the group wounded in Iraq, who have set their sights on becoming
accomplished racers and even making the 2010 Paralympic team.
“My goal is to knock him off the podium,” Mix said, pointing to fellow
disabled veteran Chris Devlin-Young, head coach for the clinic’s Alpine
race and development program.
That’s a lofty goal, considering that Devlin-Young is a three-time
Paralympian with two gold and two silver medals under his belt. He’s
also the first U.S. athlete to win gold medals in two disability
categories.
And like Mix, he got his first taste of skiing at the winter sports
clinic here.
Devlin-Young, a Coast Guard veteran, said he reluctantly agreed to
participate in the first clinic in 1985, three years after a C-130
aircraft crash left him a paraplegic. He was mad at the world at the
time about losing use of his legs and had little interest in trying out
skiing, he said.
But the first time down the hill, he was hooked. “It gave me adrenaline
and control. It gave me my life back,” he said.
Now Devlin-Young is helping to bring that exhilaration to other disabled
veterans bent on pushing their limits on the slopes.
“A lot of these guys want to be racers, and a lot want to be better
skiers,” he said. “They want to master the mountain in a way they never
imagined.”
He said he sees a lot of potential in Mix, a Navy veteran and former
Seabee who was paralyzed from the waist down by a mortar blast in
Baghdad in 2004. “Does he have the potential? Yes,” Devlin-Young said.
“Does he have the ambition? Yes. Does he have the drive? Yes.”
Three years ago, Devlin-Young might have assessed Mix differently. Mix
was a self-proclaimed “couch potato” whose sporting life centered on
watching drag racing and NASCAR on TV.
He’d never been on skis before finding himself in a wheelchair, and
tried it out for the first time during the 2005 winter sports clinic.
After that, there was no turning back. “The freedom you feel when you’re
out there takes the disability away and makes you feel like you’re
able-bodied again,” he said.
Mix said he quickly tried to get on with his life after being wounded.
“I didn’t sit back and pout. My wife wouldn’t let me!” he said. Instead,
he set his sights on becoming a role model for his children and showing
them that “being in a wheelchair doesn’t stop you from anything.”
In fact, it’s pushing the 36-year-old to levels he never thought he
would attain. He’s among three Iraqi Freedom veterans in the U.S.
Olympic Committee’s Veterans’ Paralympic Performance Program Alpine
Skiing program, based here, and has set his sights on the 2010 Vancouver
Paralympic Games.
The VPPP program, a partnership between the U.S. Olympic Committee, the
Department of Veterans Affairs and Challenge Aspen, helps groom disabled
veterans for national and international ski competitions, explained
Houston Cowan, founder and chief executive officer of Challenge Aspen.
Other Iraqi Freedom veterans participating in the program are Keith
Calhoun, an Army staff sergeant who had both legs amputated when a
rocket-propelled grenade hit in convoy in November 2003, and Casey
Owens, a Marine Corps corporal who lost both legs when his Humvee hit a
land mine.
Mix is taking the lessons he’s learning through the program and pushing
forward with his dream. He returned last week from one of a long string
of competitions toward qualifying for the Paralympics: the 2007 Hartford
U.S. Disabled Alpine Championships in Waterville Valley, N.H. “I didn’t
make it to the podium, but I held my own,” he said.
“He not only held his own, he made a huge statement of what’s to come,”
Houston said.
Other veterans at the winter sports clinic here share Mix’s aspirations
of refining their skiing technique and becoming champion racers.
Peter Axelson, who raced on the U.S. Disabled Ski Team from 1985 to 1982
and is here working with group, said reaching that goal requires more
than just the ability to ski fast.
“It takes strength and a mindset to want to push through limits. It also
takes patience and a willingness to do drills over and over. It’s very
physical, and it’s very mental,” he said.
Bruce Gibbings, a Vietnam-era Army veteran, said he’s taking in all the
lessons Axelson, Devlin-Young and the other instructors here have to
offer.
At age 60, Gibbons acknowledges that making the Paralympic Ski Team may
be a long shot. But he insists it’s not a dream he’s willing to abandon
just yet.
“I might be the oldest member of the Paralympic team, but I want to see
if I can get myself there,” he said. Gibbings said he feels up to the
rigors of the training.
“I’m healthier and stronger than I’ve ever been,” he said. “God blessed
me with a lot of energy, I still have a lot of the use of my body, and
I’ve taken my skiing to a level I never dreamed of.”
Terry Smutney, an Army veteran who was disabled due to chemical exposure
in northern Iraq during Operation Desert Storm, said he, too, is all
ears to the lessons he’s getting here.
Now an adaptive ski instructor himself in Mammoth Lakes, Calif., Smutney
frequently works with wounded troops returning from combat. He said the
pointers he’s picking up here are helping make him a better skier, racer
and teacher to other disabled skiers.
Smutney remembers his first time on skis after his injury, in December
2004, as a life-changing experience. “I was on 12 different medications,
four of them narcotics for pain control. I was smoking. I was doing
everything wrong,” he said.
Within four months, Smutney was skiing every time he got the opportunity
and had tossed away all his medications, as well as his cigarettes. “The
only drug I was on was the mountain,” he said.
Now 50, Smutney said he’s too old to think about the Paralympics, but
said wants to continue progressing and sharing the joy of skiing and
racing with other disabled veterans, especially those just back from
combat.
“That’s my way of giving back what I’ve been given,” he said. “To see
the frowns and wonderment on their faces turn to smiles and relaxation,
well, that’s just not something you can put in a bottle. You have to be
here and experience it, because if you can come down that mountain, you
can do anything.”
Devlin-Young agreed that it’s gratifying to help disabled skiers stretch
beyond their comfort zones to become more confident and more capable.
“My goal is to give back some of what skiing gave to me,” he said.
And while he’d love to see some of the veterans he’s working with here
achieve their Paralympic dreams, he said what’s happening here on
Snowmass Mountain is about a lot more than racing.
“This is the next level: mastering the mountain,” he said. “When you do
that, you will be confident and safe—anytime, anyplace and in any
condition. And ultimately, that’s what this is all about.”
By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service
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Larry Scott --
